Foreign Inheritance

Schweizer Kobras acts for executors, administrators and beneficiaries in relation to succession matters where some or all of the estate assets are located outside Australia or where the people involved in the estate reside in different countries.  We have extensive experience in advising public trustees and trustee companies in regard to assets located in countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and advise on the substantive and procedure law in those jurisdictions. 

We assist our client in the preparation and lodgement of the necessary applications and correspond with foreign courts, overseas banks and share registers and advise about the validity and effect of Australian grants of probate and letters of administration. We also assist in the collection, sale or transfer of overseas assets.

Schweizer Kobras additionally advises clients with assets in Australia and elsewhere in the world, mostly in Germany, Switzerland or Austria about estate planning and testamentary matters, particularly having regard to the different inheritance and taxation laws affecting estates in those countries. 

In the context of our foreign inheritance practice, we typically prepare and review:

• Foreign Wills and other Testamentary
  Instruments
• Applications for German and Swiss
  Certificates of Inheritance
• Applications for German and Swiss
  Certificate of Executorship
• Advices on substantive and procedural
  German and Swiss Succession Law
• Advices to foreign courts and overseas
  banks on the effect and validity of
  Australian Grants of Probate and Letters
  of Administration